Posted on 08/21/2004 7:25:32 PM PDT by blam
Neanderthal Man 'never walked in northern Europe'
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
(Filed: 22/08/2004)
Historians of the Stone Age fear that they will have to rip up their theories about Neanderthal Man after doubt has been cast on the carbon dating of skeletons by a leading German anthropologist.
Work by the flamboyant Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten showed that Neanderthal Man existed in northern Europe. Calculations on skeletal remains found at Hahnofersand, near Hamburg, stated they were 36,000 years old.
Yet recent research at Oxford University's carbon-dating laboratory has suggested that they date back a mere 7,500 years. By that time, Homo sapiens was already well-established and the Neanderthals were extinct.
Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory."
But Prof von Zieten, 65, the descendant of a famous 18th-century Prussian general, rejected the evidence from Oxford University last week.
"The new data from Oxford is all wrong," he told Germany's Der Spiegel. He said that the university's scientists had failed to remove shellac preservative from the specimens. As a result, the remains appeared to be much younger.
"Unfortunately, archaeologists and most anthropologists do not study physics or chemistry and therefore they cannot make judgments on carbon dating," he said. "Wrong measurements are made in all laboratories."
Prof von Zieten, who has a penchant for large Havana cigars and Porsche cars, has been considered an expert in carbon-dating techniques since the 1970s. He has tested hundreds of prehistoric bone finds from Europe and Africa over the past 30 years.
Now, however, important remains that Oxford scientists no longer believe are prehistoric include the female "Bischof-Speyer" skeleton, found near the south-west German town of Speyer with unusually good teeth. Their evidence suggests that she is 3,300 years old, not 21,300.
Another apparent misdating involved an allegedly prehistoric skull discovered near Paderborn in 1976 and considered the oldest human remain ever found in the region. Prof von Zieten dated the skull at 27,400 years old. The latest research, however, indicates that it belonged to an elderly man who died around 1750.
Germany's Herne anthropological museum, which owns the Paderborn skull, was so disturbed by the findings that it did its own tests. "We had the skull cut open and it still smelt," the museum's director, Barbara Ruschoff-Thale, said last week. "We are naturally very disappointed."
Concern about Prof von Zieten's carbon-dating estimates arose last year following a routine investigation of German prehistoric remains by the German and British anthropologists Thomas Terberger and Martin Street.
"We had decided to subject many of these finds to modern techniques to check their authenticity so we sent them to Oxford for testing," Mr Street told The Sunday Telegraph. "It was a routine examination and in no way an attempt to discredit Prof von Zieten."
In their report, though, both anthropologists described this as a "dating disaster".
The scandal engulfing Prof von Zieten goes further. Police are investigating allegations that he tried to sell 280 chimpanzee skulls from his university to buyers in America for $70,000 (£38,000).
Prof von Zieten denies the claims, saying that he legitimately obtained the skulls from a Heidelberg ethnologist in 1975. Frankfurt university last month suspended the professor from his post in the anthropology department while it runs its own inquiry.
In addition to his original screen name, there were the "Seven Dwarves" incarnations he created shortly after he was originally banned for repeatedly spamming the threads with his weirdness instead of posting a link like a normal person. Since then, he's popped up several more times at infrequent intervals, only to be banished once again as a returning previously banned troll.
I can't recall all the different screennames, but he has to be up in the range of about a dozen by now.
Much going these days. Almost like an old Lakers - Celtics game where the momentum has decidedly shifted.
Exciting times!
Since you've had the opportunity for multiple posts now to support your claim that "all chemicals" and design are the only alternatives but have not done so, I will take that as an admission on your part that your claim has no merit.
"Because it is no different than stating that "the Easter Bunny did it". A naked assertion is meaningless, a non sequitur, a fundamental exercise in illogical thinking."
pray-tell... how does a chemical reaction then become a life philosophy or even lies?
if we are only what we see, why do we not see our own thoughts? we see stimulation caused by thoughts, but these arent CAUSED to chemicals, but free will. how does free will equate with chemicals?
i know we are more than mere chemicals becuase we ask more than simply "how"
by our own design we negate science as being the one whole truth. it is a portion of the picture. it may be accurate, but it is not all inclusive.
you got that?
"Instead of just repeating your belief, why don't you try supporting that assertion, if you can?"
for the umpteenth freakin time, we are more than chemicals because otherwise we would witness life being formed and we would be able to reproduce such a simple concept if it were the full truth!
If your personal incredulity and repeating your BS for the 550th time is all you got, quit wasting our time. And your own.
listen the first time and no one wastes time.
Learn to spell and use some capital letters. You know, like third graders do. When you master that, we can talk science.
been here before. make actual contributions, and then ill think about it. even then though, for you, i wouldnt care what you thought of my writings on this forum.
Ted! It is you!
Thanks for the ping!
Can't get over how these secular skeptics only know strawman arguments from the creo sites.
"Unfortunately, his posts can be cherry-picked by DU (inter alia) to show that Conservatives are illiterate. From his responses, I'm assuming this is the result he wants."
"illiterate" would imply i can neither read, nor write. yet i do both.
it would also imply i am ignorant of the language i am speaking. given that i know its function and how the brain actually interprets the symbols, and i use this in my writings, i would say that makes me literate in the same sense as Theodor Seuss Geisel. the man didnt adhear to formal writing, and it created one of the most ingenious ways of communicating to children ideas like "greed" and "peer pressure" and even making life an adventure.
if a DUmmy wants to pass judgement on me, go right ahead. i dont value their logic, and after talking to most of them, i realize they will never value all of mine. i find most of them to be quite ignorant. any thing they say about me would be like a football player telling a doctor how to reset his joint. if you care what a DUmmy thinks, that just shows me how secure you are in your social view.
and as for people on Freep. if they like me, they like me. if they dont, fine. if they base any assumptions of me only on my style, i say they dont know what they are missing.
again, i dont give a flying rat's posterior.
"Did you know he's not a creationist, just a skeptic? Told me that on another thread recently."
have i or have i not said that i feel evolution is a viable idea of how we came to be as humans? i recognize this means our human form didnt just appear over night. their is evidence of a trickle of sorts of the human race coming into being. a strict creationist would attack this.
i DONT adhear to the thought that simple chemical processes made us all by themselves. you have no way of debunking this, because it is on your secularist failures i base it.
"Can't get over how these secular skeptics only know strawman arguments from the creo sites."
and i cant get over how these neo-darwinists refuse- in the face of their own failures- to accept their "science" is flawed because they are using it with bias.
Your 'trail' is mighty sketchy, don't you think?
Even E folks argue over which way to go.
Maybe, but he's walked in the US... his name is John Kerry.
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